We (my wife
Julie and I) bought the car just over a year ago. I had
been wanting to start a project car of my own as I had been
helping a friend on a 54 Metropolitan and thought I should
be doing this for myself if I was going to be doing it.
As it happened my friend with the Met ran across this car
and told me about it. A couple was splitting up and needed
to divide assets and the 55 was one of them.

From what I could tell they had not done much to it since
they purchased it. The seal around the heater motor
and the seal at the back of the hood were both missing so
as it sat out in the rain, water found it's way through
the heater opening and right into the floor board. Rather
than fix it they just ripped the carpet up and stuck rags
up under the firewall pad to keep the flood out.

Having purchased it in mid
summer I really wanted to drive it a little before I started
working on it. After all who wants their car down in the
few months of good weather we have. So I began to clean
it up and do a few things to stop the water leak and the
bare necessities to get it going. For the most part the
car is original. There are a few things that got changed
down through the years obviously but nothing so major that
kept me from thinking I could get it back to it's original
state (or close to it). It came with Power Brakes but someone
in their infinite wisdom took that off and jury rigged a
master cylinder onto it. I still have hopes of getting that
returned to original but have had difficulty finding parts.
So if anyone has any parts or ideas let me know. All that
was left of that system is the brake pedal and the vacuum
canister in the fender well. So it has a ways to go.

For the rest of the summer I
drove it some while I cleaned and observed and noted what
I thought should be done. If I had been thinking I would
have taken some pictures of the condition it was in as I
started tearing things apart as winter approached, it would
prove to be a shortcoming on my part as well as a lost history
of what it had been. I knew it was time to see how bad the
floors were going to be. I thought when I got the underlayment
out of the floorboard that it would be really rusted but
the drivers side wound up being worse than the passenger
side. I thought I could just get by with taking the carpet
out but the more I worked the more I found and soon all
that was left in the inside was an empty dash. The question
was would I ever get it back together. My wife kept telling
me that I should put something back together since it was
really getting to a be a daunting task with parts everywhere
and I had never had a car down this far. But being the male
that I am I did not listen. Ha!

Fortunately
none of the floor panels were very bad so with a lot of
sanding, rust inhibitor and primer I think and hope that
I have stopped the rust (for now at least).

The headliner was way past gone
and when I finally got around to tearing it out the roof
has covered in rust also. More sanding and primer took care
of that. So now it was time to put something back together.
I had absolutely no experience with installing a headliner
and by the time I got back around to installing it I had
forgotten what it looked like when it was finished (remember
the pictures I should have taken). But thanks to Gina who
responded to my call and let me look at her four door I
was able to get it back together. For the first time I think
we did pretty good, but we learned some hard lessons. I
think the windlace was the hardest, especially after I finally
figured out what they sent me was sewed up wrong.

So from there
we put in the firewall pad, carpet steering column, and
all the wiring and instrumentation under the dash. What
a difference it made.

When we got the car it still
had the thick plastic over the rear seat. The top of the
back had long since been rotted out by the sun but the seat
part was almost like new when we took the plastic off, amazing.
The only thing bad with the back was the top part so being
tight on money and wanting not to waste what was good we
ripped the stitching out and bought some vinyl material,
sewed it back in and painted it with the original coral
spray paint. For now it looks pretty good (until we can
do better). The front seat was a total mess so new foam
and seat cover was a must.

That is pretty much where
we are at on it. It still has a long ways to go. The front
end needs a total rebuild (next winters project) and the
engine and engine compartment will come in time. The paint
is well fair. The coral part has not been painted from what
I can tell. The gray has been painted and there is a funny
story that goes with it but I have gone on too long already
I am sure.